Counting Every Death

As we saw a few weeks ago upon the sad event of the 1,000th US military death in Iraq, the MSM uncorked a flurry of stories concerning the unjust nature of the war. They were waiting for it and almost seemed excited by it. Here was a story that would take the Swifties off the A-section of the morning paper. The idea that the Dems are at the point that bad things in Iraq mean good things for Kerry is a supremely sad state of affairs that underscore the desperation the minority party now feels. Christopher Hitchens nails the despicable nature of this horrific way of thinking:

What will it take to convince these people that this is not a year, or a time, to be dicking around? Americans are patrolling a front line in Afghanistan, where it would be impossible with 10 times the troop strength to protect all potential voters on Oct. 9 from Taliban/al-Qaida murder and sabotage. We are invited to believe that these hard-pressed soldiers of ours take time off to keep Osama Bin Laden in a secret cave, ready to uncork him when they get a call from Karl Rove? For shame.
Ever since The New Yorker published a near-obituary piece for the Kerry campaign, in the form of an autopsy for the Robert Shrum style, there has been a salad of articles prematurely analyzing "what went wrong." This must be nasty for Democratic activists to read, and I say "nasty" because I hear the way they respond to it. A few pin a vague hope on the so-called "debates"—which are actually joint press conferences allowing no direct exchange between the candidates—but most are much more cynical. Some really bad news from Iraq, or perhaps Afghanistan, and/or a sudden collapse or crisis in the stock market, and Kerry might yet "turn things around." You have heard it, all right, and perhaps even said it. But you may not have appreciated how depraved are its implications. If you calculate that only a disaster of some kind can save your candidate, then you are in danger of harboring a subliminal need for bad news. And it will show. What else explains the amazingly crude and philistine remarks of that campaign genius Joe Lockhart, commenting on the visit of the new Iraqi prime minister and calling him a "puppet"? Here is the only regional leader who is even trying to hold an election, and he is greeted with an ungenerous sneer.
The unfortunately necessary corollary of this—that bad news for the American cause in wartime would be good for Kerry—is that good news would be bad for him. Thus, in Mrs. Kerry's brainless and witless offhand yet pregnant remark, we hear the sick thud of the other shoe dropping. How can the Democrats possibly have gotten themselves into a position where they even suspect that a victory for the Zarqawi or Bin Laden forces would in some way be welcome to them? Or that the capture or killing of Bin Laden would not be something to celebrate with a whole heart?
I think that this detail is very important because the Kerry camp often strives to give the impression that its difference with the president is one of degree but not of kind. Of course we all welcome the end of Taliban rule and even the departure of Saddam Hussein, but we can't remain silent about the way policy has been messed up and compromised and even lied about. I know what it's like to feel that way because it is the way I actually do feel. But I also know the difference when I see it, and I have known some of the liberal world quite well and for a long time, and there are quite obviously people close to the leadership of today's Democratic Party who do not at all hope that the battle goes well in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Exactly. I can't even imagine thinking that these good men and women died for nothing more than a few cheap votes for a man who slandered the memory of other good men 33 years ago. I know the left view would be that we shouldn't be there in the first place, a debate that is ongoing, but the simple fact is that our troops are there. They are fighting every day and trying to rebuild a country that has a shattered infrastructure and a deep-rooted wariness of government, not to mention long-held theological differences within the Muslim religion. These volunteers need to read the paper and know that we support them, regardless of our ideological slant, we should support what they are getting underpaid to do. The fact that the Kerry campaign seems to be wishing for either a terrorist attack at home (which I believe is also a wish of al-Qaeda), or major American casualties in Iraq is abhorrent.